Cards Speak — Student Resources

Geri Morgan is the Student Care Manager in the Dean of Students Office and has served in this role for almost 10 years. Geri’s primary responsibilities are administration of the Student Care Team and responding to students in crisis. Geri wrote a federal grant in 2015 which started Cards SPEAK, UofL’s suicide prevention program and Geri has overseen the functions of Cards SPEAK for the last 6 years. Geri was also instrumental in bringing ConcernCenter, an online interactive resource directory to UofL in 2016 and currently oversees that project.

Geri holds a Bachelor of Arts in English from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and a Master of Social Work from The Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville. She has worked for UofL for almost 20 years, both on the HSC and Belknap campuses. Prior to coming to Student Affairs, Geri was in academic advising for Kent School of Social Work and Family Science and has taught social work courses over the years. Geri enjoys UofL sports, Racing Louisville, and her dogs--Murray & Mabel.

The Host: Hello everybody and welcome back to the Student Affairs Podcasts Series. My name is … (I am a senior majoring in ) and I will be your host today. In this episode, we will be talking about the "Cards SPEAK" program and what they are about. Today I am joined by Geri Morgan, (Geri Morgan is the Student Care Manager in the Dean of Students Office and has served in this role for almost 10 years. Geri’s primary responsibilities are administration of the Student Care Team and responding to students in crisis. Geri wrote a federal grant in 2015 which started Cards SPEAK, UofL’s suicide prevention program and Geri has overseen the functions of Cards SPEAK for the last 6 years. Geri was also instrumental in bringing ConcernCenter, an online interactive resource directory to UofL in 2016 and currently oversees that project.

Please welcome our guest.

The Host: The first question we would like to know is what the "Cards SPEAK" program is about?

Geri Morgan: Cards SPEAK stands for Cards Suicide Prevention, Education, Awareness, and Knowledge. It is our suicide prevention training and awareness program for the UofL community—students, staff, faculty, and families. It started as a campus-collaboration in writing a campus suicide prevention grant through SAMHSA (Substance Abuse Mental Health Association) in 2015.

Over the years, we have offered several different opportunities for everyone to be trained in how to help a student or friend when they may be experiencing distress and thinking about, talking about, or even have attempted suicide. Suicide is preventable. We want to make sure students and other UofL community members feel equipped to help someone else get the resources that can help, whether those resources are on campus or in their community.

Cards SPEAK offers the following trainings:

Question, Persuade, Refer (QPR) is offered to groups of faculty and staff as requested and periodically with open trainings on MS Teams during each semester. The School of Medicine requests QPR for its medical students each semester. The School of Nursing has also participated as a cohort in the past. Student groups, such as Housing staff, fraternities and sororities, academic student councils, peer educations, etc., can also request a QPR session. UofL currently has 9 certified QPR trainers, and also works with NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) of Louisville if additional trainers are required.

"It’s Real: Mental Health and College Students" is also a group training experience offered through request of Cards SPEAK. "It’s Real" is a 17-minute video normalizing the mental health experiences of a diverse group of college students and is followed by a leader-facilitated discussion. "It’s Real" is offered through the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP) and AFSP and UofL trainers can facilitate this training for student groups.

UofL, after success with the student version of Kognito online interactive training for mental health from 2016-2020 has contracted again with Kognito: At-Risk Mental Health for both Students and for Faculty & Staff. Each module takes the participant approximately 45 minutes to interact with various avatar-based scenarios related to university settings and choose appropriate responses to students who may be distressed with mental health concerns. Appropriate talking points and resources are provided to the participant. Each participant may save and/or print a certificate of completion after the online training. Kognito for students is offered through many of the GEN 100/101 orientation courses, to social work practicum students and other students studying helping professions as well as generally to the student population through various awareness campaigns.

Each training sponsored by Cards SPEAK leaves participants with campus resource information as well as national and community hotlines and other resources.

Cards SPEAK also participates annually with AFSP by sponsoring the University of Louisville Campus Out of the Darkness Walk each Spring semester—a fundraising and awareness-raising walk around campus with a resource fair—to raise funds to help support the programs of AFSP in Kentucky and specifically the Louisville community. UofL students, staff, and faculty also participate in the Louisville Community Out of the Darkness Walk each Fall.

The Host: What message do you send to our students?

Geri Morgan: We try to send the message that everyone can be a helpful resource to a friend who is struggling with mental health. It’s important to be direct and to know the proper people, offices, and resources to guide someone to. If you can help your struggling friend make that first call or walk them to the counseling center or someone who can help, that’s what we want anyone to feel comfortable doing, whether that is a faculty or staff member or a student. We want Cards to SPEAK up and LIFT each other up to prevent suicide among our community.

The Host: How do I make an appointment and where you are located?

Geri Morgan: Currently, Cards SPEAK is housed in the Dean of Students Office in the Student Activities Center, W301, but it is a collaborative effort with many partners across campus. We offer trainings and awareness information but not counseling. If someone would like to request a particular training, they can go to our website at Cards SPEAK (louisville.edu), and click on the Get Involved tab. There are also helpful resources on the website. Also, another great way for faculty, staff, and students to get involved is with our annual Campus Out of the Darkness Walk in partnership with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention (AFSP). This year it is on Sunday, April 10th at 3:00 PM with a resource fair and activities as well as a walk around Belknap Campus to raise funds for and awareness for suicide prevention. More information will be popping up on campus leading up to the Walk.

The Host: Thank you that is great to know and for more information for a directory of campus resources go to https://louisville.edubackslashcardsspeak.

Thank you, Geri, for such informative interview, we were happy to have you here, have a great day, take care.

For our listeners for more information about student services go to https://louisville.edu/studentaffairs.

Did you know that there is a special food pantry for UofL students, faculty and staff who are in need? The Commonwealth Credit Union Cardinal Cupboard is located in the SAC in room W312 and is open 5 days a week (Monday through Friday) from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

Don’t forget that 2022 Student Awards is coming up
Wednesday, April 20, 2022 at 7:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Student Activities Center, Ballroom
RSVP on Engage
the event will also be live streamed on YouTube.

Finally, we’d like to give a shout out to the campus safety alert for always keeping our students updated on where the emergency on campus have happened.

That was it for today hope you enjoyed today’s episode and be sure to come back next week for another episode.